Detection of lesions, e.g. along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is usually done by an endoscope. An endoscope acquires images of the GI tract while it is being pushed along the GI tract, and thus the GI lumen is being scanned for any abnormality, for example, polyps. However, detection of the presence of lesions is not enough. There is also the need to analyze the lesion and determine whether a lesion is cancerous or benign. Changes in cell structure (e.g. size of nucleus and density of cells) and changes in blood content, which are typical to cancer, pre-cancer and other bowel diseases can be discovered and analyzed by spectral means.
A few probes, which perform elastic scattering spectroscopy, are known. These probes may determine by the characteristics of light scattering off the tissue, the type of the lesion, e.g. whether cancerous or benign. However, these probes are all inserted through the patient's mouth, which might cause some discomfort for the patient during insertion of the probe and during its manipulation within the lumen. In addition, these probes that provide elastic scattering data do not provide a “white light” or color image of the lumen, which may be needed in order to locate the position of the lesion along the GI tract.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved in vivo device that can provide both spectral information along with standard images of the in-vivo lumen, and thus a more accurate determination of the severity of the pathology may be carried out as well as a determination of the pathology location.